I think this is more of a question about the nature of SO users. I see a lot of questions with 5 or 6 answers, but 0 up-votes. I realize that sometimes that may be because down-votes and up-votes cancel each other out, but in a lot of cases people will just answer, and not up-vote.

Isn't answer a question implicitly indicating that you feel it is worthy of the time it takes you to answer? If I answer a question, I will (almost) always up-vote the question.

I also realize that a lot of times people will answer a question that they feel needs to be improved upon (needs to be clarified, formatted better, etc). In those cases I don't up-vote, but I find those cases to be in the minority of the questions I answer.

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Even stranger is one of those answers having a lot of upvotes, that would make me think the question would deserve one as well...
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Ivo FlipseAug 24 '09 at 15:41

@Ivo, yeah, I agree, I think that is the type of scenario I've been subconsciously noticing which brought me to ask this question. I see that a lot, now that I really think about that.
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unforgiven3Aug 24 '09 at 15:45

10 Answers
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I generally do vote up questions that I answer if I feel they were a good question. That is not always the case.

Just because someone took the time to answer you does not necessarily mean that they believe your question had any significant value. Or they may be out of votes. There are numerous reasons as to why someone wouldn't upvote your question even if they provide an answer.

Agreed. I'll try to help people even when the question they ask is ill-considered, misinformed, trivial, or otherwise not worthy of an upvote. Really good questions have something to teach people---when you understnad the answer, you know something you didn't know before.
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dmckeeAug 24 '09 at 15:31

I find it to be more of a curiosity, than anything. I generally won't answer a question if I don't feel it was a good question, unless I can see some room for improvement. And I'm not necessarily talking about my own questions - it's a trend I've noticed for awhile on SO.
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unforgiven3Aug 24 '09 at 15:32

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There are a lot of questions that are of zero value to anyone but the OP, e.g. a simple Google or SO search would have provided the answer straight away. I don't mind answering these questions for the OP's benefit, but they certainly don't deserve an upvote.
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Christian HayterOct 6 '09 at 16:02

Yeah, I find myself doing that too - voting up questions I don't answer. I do that a lot of times when I feel I am unable to answer the question, but I know that there are others on SO that can, and I don't want the question to get lost in the mix.
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unforgiven3Aug 24 '09 at 15:37

Yes, I often upvote questions when I'm interested myself in the answer - and then it is most often the case that I can't answer them.
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Paŭlo EbermannApr 14 '11 at 23:45

Case in point, I just asked a question today that someone actually bookmarked, and I still didn't get any upvotes. Who would bookmark a question if they didn't think it's a good question? I guess it's possible I got one upvote and one downvote, but still...

I think maybe people don't upvote because SO doesn't provide much incentive. They added the "accept rate" thing to encourage people to accept answers. I also think when the author of a question upvotes an answer, a reminder to accept the answer appears in a little pop-up. I would like to see a similar pop-up if you bookmark an answer and maybe if you choose to answer a question. If can just say, "If you thought this was a clear and useful question, please consider upvoting it."

I have bookmarked many questions I didn't upvote. Typically because several answers were good, or it is on a topic that interests me, but the question was no great shakes. In fact, I've bookmarked and downvoted bad questions, because I want to revisit it later.
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Dour High ArchSep 23 '10 at 22:29

Because they thought that you did a poor job of posing an interesting question.
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RosinanteApr 15 '11 at 1:17

Users may get too wrapped up in providing the answer that they forget to vote on the question. Or they feel the two are mutually exclusive. What is the criteria for giving a question an upvote? Mayb a prompt is in order?

I don't really know if a prompt is necessary, I don't think people should feel pressured to upvote or downvote, but I think that people's willingness to provide answers should be somehow included in the overall "worth" of a question. I'm not sure how it would be possible to do that in practice, though.
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unforgiven3Aug 24 '09 at 15:51

One over all goal of these websites is to be a resource and reference on the Internet. They encourage the upvoting of good questions that are well written and will be an added benefit for anyone who may be searching for answers to a similar issue either through the sites search or google search. The voting system is to rate the question on being clear and a great resource question that many people could reference.

The answer up/down vote on the answer is simply being a great solution to the question given. Doesn't mean it was a great question to begin with. I have even answered questions I have downvoted.

I would never leave an answer to a question without an upvote as I don't think a bad question deserves a good answer. But I would give a bad answer to a bad question and so I would leave it on 0.

As others said, there are good reasons to not upvote the question you answer to and even though I disagree on giving good answers to bad questions doesn't mean I'd never do it. It highly depends on each case and it doesn't even depend just on the question. It could rely on my mood!

you proposed something on a comment to the other question: add a script reminding to upvote the question. I'd suggest you to add it in here as part of your answer to improve the visibility since I think it's a very good option. My personal opinion, though, is that it should remind the answerer to vote it (whether up or down) and not assume that the vote would be good. I do answer bad questions if I see that the topic is worth being answered, but I do not upvote and I may even downvote those.
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AleadamApr 15 '11 at 6:42